For almost seven years in the 1980s, I lived on Mali’s Dogon Plateau. I was a Peace Corps volunteer focused on primary health care and spent most of my time with women. I learned about their joys, sorrows, dreams, struggles and, surprisingly, their great fear of childbirth.

Developing leaders on surgical teams is a key strategy of the Safe Surgery 2020 Initiative now underway in Ethiopia; the goal is to deliver high-quality surgical services and reduce surgery-related deaths.

Dozens of women arrived outside of a tent in Musanze, Rwanda, for the chance to reclaim their lives. Many of the women were suffering with obstetric fistula, a childbirth-related injury that can result in incontinence and stench. Because of this, some had been living in obscurity; som